Misc

The Top 100 U.S. Colleges, Ranked by Tuition

Published

3 years ago

November 7, 2020

Nick Routley

Click to view a larger version of this infographic

Top 100 U.S. Colleges, Ranked by Tuition

Attending a good school in the U.S. comes at a price.

Since 1985, college tuition has risen by roughly 500%, vastly outpacing almost all other increases in the cost of living. Today, there are more than 4,000 colleges in the country, ranging from high-flying Ivy League institutions to more modest, practical schools.

This infographic from TitleMax shows the top 100 colleges in America based on the U.S. News Best National Universities list, ranked by tuition from highest to lowest.

College Tuition: The Top 20 Most Expensive

From $5,000 to over $60,000, the price of college tuition for top U.S. schools is wide-ranging.

Columbia University, with a price tag of $61,850 takes top spot. Based in Manhattan, New York it has a rich history of graduates and instructors, including investing legends Benjamin Graham and Joel Greenblatt.

Although Columbia has the highest tuition cost, the school covers financial need with a mix of grants and work-study, which means low-income students don’t have to take on any student loan debt. This means a student coming from a home with $60,000 or less of income won’t be expected to pay anything toward tuition. That said, getting into the school is the tricky part. Columbia only admits 6% of applicants.

Rank	Name	Ivy League?	Tuition
1	Columbia University	🌿	$61,850
2	University of Chicago		$59,298
3	Tufts University		$58,578
4	Brown University	🌿	$58,504
5	Duke University		$58,198
6	University of Southern California		$58,195
7	Boston College		$57,190
8	University of Pennsylvania	🌿	$57,770
9	Brandeis University		$57,561
10	Cornell University	🌿	$57,222
11	Dartmouth College	🌿	$57,204
12	Carnegie Mellon University		$57,119
13	George Washington University		$56,935
14	Tulane University		$56,800
15	Northwestern University		$56,691
16	Southern Methodist University		$56,560
17	Georgetown University		$56,058
18	University of Rochester		$56,026
19	Boston University		$55,892
20	Pepperdine University		$55,892

Following Columbia is the University of Chicago. Its Booth School of Business was ranked the top MBA program in the world, with graduates averaging $135,000 in median income after graduation.

What may be surprising is that venerated institutions such as Harvard and Princeton don’t appear in the top 20, in terms of average tuition.

College Tuition: The Top 20 Least Expensive

How about the other end of the tuition spectrum for top schools in the country?

Rank	Tuition	Name
1	$5,790	Brigham Young University (Provo)
2	$21,673	Florida State University
3	$27,791	Binghamton University (SUNY)
4	$27,850	University of Buffalo (SUNY)
5	$28,528	Stony Brook University (SUNY)
6	$28,658	University of Florida
7	$28,794	Purdue University (West Laffayette)
8	$29,220	North Carolina State University (Raleigh)
9	$31,120	University of Georgia
10	$31,568	University of Iowa
11	$32,061	Ohio State University (Columbus)
12	$32,189	Rutgers University (New Brunswick)
13	$32,750	New Jersey Institute of Technology
14	$32,835	Virginia Tech
15	$33,325	University of Minnesota (Twin Cities)
16	$33,352	University of Illinois (Urbana Champagne)
17	$33,746	University of Pittsburgh
18	$33,794	Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)
19	$34,307	Miami University (Oxford)
20	$34,310	University of Delaware

With a tuition of $5,790 Brigham Young University (Provo) has the lowest of the top 100, by far. Based in Provo, Utah it is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The college restricts drinking coffee, alcoholic beverages, and other activities—requiring students to follow a strict honor code.

Also found on the list is the University of Florida and Purdue. Unsurprisingly, many public schools offer the most affordable college tuitions.

Related Topics:ivy league tuition university tuition

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Misc

Visualizing the Most Common Pets in the U.S.

Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!—these animals do not feature on this list of popular American household pets.

Published

2 days ago

April 27, 2024

Marcus Lu

A cropped chart showing the most popular pets in America by the number of households that own the pet.

Visualizing The Most Common Pets in the U.S.

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

In this graphic, we visualized the most common American household pets, based on 2023-2024 data from the American Pet Products Association (accessed via Forbes Advisor).

Figures represent the number of households that own each pet type, rather than the actual number of each animal. The “small animal” category includes hamsters, gerbils, rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas, mice, rats, and ferrets.

What is the Most Popular American Household Pet?

Based on this data, dogs—one of the first domesticated animals—are the most common pets in the United States. In fact, around 65 million households own a dog, and spend an average of $900 a year on their care.

Rank	Species	Households
1	🐶 Dog	65M
2	🐱 Cat	47M
3	🐟 Freshwater Fish	11M
4	🐰 Small Animals	7M
5	🐦 Bird	6M
6	🦎 Reptile	6M
7	🐴 Horse	2M
8	🐠 Saltwater Fish	2M

Note: Households can own multiple pets, and are counted for all relevant categories.

Cats rank second, at 47 million households, and these smaller felines are a little less expensive to own at $700/year according to Forbes estimates.

But aside from these two juggernauts, there are plenty of other common pet types found in households across the country.

Freshwater fish can be found in 11 million households, along with small animals—rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs—in 7 million. Meanwhile, nearly 6 million homes have birds or reptiles.

Pet Ownership is on the Rise in America

Forbes found that 66% of all American households (numbering 87 million) own at least one pet, up from 56% in 1988. One third of these (29 million) own multiple pets.

A combination of factors is driving this increase: rising incomes, delayed childbirth, and of course the impact of the pandemic which nearly cleared out animal shelters across the globe.

America’s loneliness epidemic may also be a factor. Fledgling research has shown that single-individual households with pets recorded lower rates of loneliness during the pandemic than those without a pet.